


Ritual

by SeRose (Sarosia)



Category: Original Work
Genre: Cult, Gay, M/M, Paranormal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-08
Updated: 2017-09-07
Packaged: 2018-12-25 04:42:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 13,823
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12028341
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sarosia/pseuds/SeRose
Summary: I shouldn't have let Og drag me back to the house. It didn't matter if it had been twenty years. It didn't matter if she was finally dead. Some rituals are just waiting to be complete.





	1. Chapter 1

This house is not a home. It never was. People lived here. People died here. People lost their minds here. A house can't drive you crazy. I know that. A place can't drive you somewhere you aren't already heading.

I understand that in the real world. But this is a dream and all of those things that make sense out there...don't. Dreams and fear have that in common. Logic isn't their master.

A Gothic masterpiece sitting in the middle of an empty field. A dead field. There wasn't even a road leading to it, just two grooves where one person had driven once upon a time and others had done the same until it became permanent.

My feet carried me down the grooves to the last place I ever wanted to be. It was ridiculous to be this scared of a place. It didn't even look like a real house. It looked like the picture they'd sent in the paperwork detailing how I now have full ownership of the old place.

Flat. A little grainy like the camera they'd used wasn't all that good. It didn't fit in with how everything else looked so real.

In the time it took me to walk to the house, the sky had turned almost black. Storm clouds, heavy with a downpour that would drown me if I didn't get inside. Even with it being the only shelter, I still didn't want to go in. Drowning would be better. It had to be.

Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.

There was a rock by the groove that ran in front of the house that fit perfectly in my hand. Good weight and everything. I flashed on old baseball games played in this field. Brothers and sisters and aunts and uncles. Before everything withered away.

I chucked the rock at the house and it went straight through, tearing the paper it was made of. I could see the sky right through it. Lightning flashed and then the heaviness of the storm clouds disappeared. The sky was still dark, but it looked as smooth as glass. On the other side, something rolled against the barrier.

I screamed.

Part of me knew that I was awake. That awake meant that I was safe in my bed in the city. Og was lying beside me. Safe.

The rest of me was still seeing what lived on the other side of the sky. My mouth was open, but I wasn't really screaming. Only trying to breathe. I couldn't move. Shit-your-pants fear pinned me to the bed. It was going to get me. It was going to tear open the sky, reach down, and rip me away.

I blinked and I could see the ceiling through the clouds.

Home. This was my home. With Og.

The illusion broke and I could breathe. I could move. I shot up and the jarring of the bed woke him.

"Logan?" Og shot up, grabbing my leg because it was the closest thing he could. "What is it? Attack? Bad dream?"

Better at breathing, I nodded. "Bit of both."

He pulled me into his arms and though I usually tried to be a little more manly than this, I let him. "Is this still about the house?"

I pushed my nose and mouth into his shoulder. Breathed him in to help me calm down. "You know how I feel about the whole thing."

"You'll see. It's just wood and nails and paint. And we can change the paint." Og said. “Down the road...some of the wood and nails, too.”

I eased back to look at him. "I know. I know. It's just a house. That I haven't been back to since I turned eight."

Og sighed. "Your mom is dead and your dad probably is, too. There isn't anyone left to hurt you."

"And all of my siblings have been missing so long that the local cops gave up a long time ago."

"You made it out. You survived." Og shook me a little. "And now you have a house, free and clear. That we don't have to waste rent money on."

"I'll get a job."

Og shook his head, giving me a kiss. "You have a job that you're wonderful at. It's just a house."

I let Og guide my body down and onto my side. He cuddled up behind me until there wasn't a half inch of space between us. Wrapped in his arms, I repeated, "It's just a house."


	2. Chapter 2

It's just a house.

I took that as my mantra. The thing to keep me calm. To keep me pressing forward. It helped that Og was driving. All I had to do was watch the pretty scenery go by and keep calm.

There was actually less country than I remembered. A lot more of the area in and around town had been cleared save for groupings of trees here and there. More houses, too, and people that weren't just buzzing through on the way to bigger towns.

I kept my eyes on the window even when Og's hand landed on my leg. "Need me to pull over?"

"No." Very convincing, Logan. "Why?"

"Because we're getting close and you're looking a little green there, Kermy."

I sighed. I could see my reflection in the window, but not any colors. “If I'm Kermit, does that make you Miss Piggy?”

Og did his best impression of the felt pig. “Only if you want me to be, Big Boy.”

“Oh, God...” I had to look at him. Og took his eyes off the road for a second and batted them at me. “You are such an idiot.”

“Maybe true. But hey, I'll let you call me Miss Piggy when we consecrate every room of the new house if that'll make you happy.” Og grinned. He turned us off the main road and my heart started to speed up, anticipating what was coming.

“Ew. You sound like we've already agreed to move in.” I said.

“We need this place. But if we see it and you still say, 'no way,' then I'll drop it. I promise.” Og squeezed my leg. “We can sell it or burn it...whatever you want.”

I put my hand over his. No matter what, we were in this together. “I'm holding you to that.”

Og nodded. “I know you will.”

I was still looking at him when Og slowed to a stop. He whistled. “Well, that is impressive.”

My head turned slowly. The big reveal. The monster that everyone had been running from, but no one ever got a good look at until the end. I realized I didn't even want to _look_ at the house and that was crazy in itself. Looking at something couldn't hurt you. Just _looking_.

Still, everything in me wanted to beg Og to turn the car around and get us the hell out of here. I'd offer him anything he wanted if he'd just move. Now. Don't let me see. Don't let me be here. I can't take it. I can't.

I was already moving to look, though, and there it sat at the head of a freaking _cul de sac_.

Almost all of the dread drained out of me. While she would never sell the house, my mother had been willing to sell the land around it. The dead field had been turned into a housing development. Cookie cutter houses. Trim lawns. Streets with cute names and driveways and kids playing outside.

The house sat in the middle of the dead end flanked by four other houses going around the circle. They were all normal, middle class, perfect out of the box houses. And then there was the Gothic terror sitting among them. Empty. Abandoned. The yard short, but not because it was cut. The yards to either side were bright green from the recent rain. Our grass was a dry, dead yellow.

Og started moving again, parking on the road in front of the house. We never had a driveway. No garage, either.

“You look like you're having some thoughts that aren't entirely panic-related.” Og said.

I had no idea when I started holding my breath, but there was some definitely relief when I let it out. A small laugh followed it. “It really is just a house. A ridiculous house sitting in this kind of neighborhood.”

Og smiled. “It's unique. A guarantee that we will never get drunk and try to get in the wrong house.”

My face burned. Once. That happened once. Apartments tend to look the same from the outside. Especially when the world is all nice and spinning. The 89-year-old lady inside the apartment had been understanding enough that she helped us get the key in our own door.

Og moved to kiss me before getting out. My legs were stiff from the long car ride and I was still stretching them when Og came around. “This place looks...good. Aside from the grass. We could always pull it up and seed it. Maybe put a garden in with lots of color. I've gotta say, I expected to see something a lot more rundown.”

Most of my anxiety about the house was gone, but I could feel a seed of something lingering in my stomach. We walked over the grass – no concrete walk up to the steps, either. It crunched under our feet, reminding me again of when I was little and playing with my brothers and sisters.

This wasn't right. They should be here with me. We should all be walking up these steps together. Fighting over who gets the place and grieving the loss of our parents. If everything had been different. I felt Og's hand slip into mine and squeezed it.

Og bumped my shoulder with his. “Think you can get the key in the right door?”

I burst out laughing. No idea where it came from. I sure as hell hadn't planned on it. Hadn't even felt like it. “Twice... _twice_ in what? Five minutes?”

“Hey, you were more sober than me. It was your job to get me home safe and you couldn't even do that!” Og let go of my hand to wrap his arm around me. “Well? The anticipation is _killing_ me! Open it! Open it open it open it!”

I dug the single key out of my pocket. When they mailed it to me, it had been on a thick ring with a dozen others. Some newer, some older. Each had been labeled and I brought only the key that would get us into the house. Any rooms that we found locked deserved to stay that way. For now.

The door clicked and in we went.

Silence.

They found my mother's body on the floor at the foot of the curving staircase that cut up through the center of the house. Everything had a curve in this house. I remember it making me dizzy sometimes. Even now, I had to force myself to ignore the urge to mentally point out and follow all of the bends and bows. The whole house was a mastery of architecture that my great-grandfather took complete credit for.

She had been naked when they found her. Her skin covered by small half-moon cuts. She'd bled out, posed like Christ without the cross. Murdered was the word they used. The cops were still looking for the guy.

But they didn't know her like I did. They had no idea that the chances were higher that they had released the killer's body to her family – me – to be buried than it being some kind of outside job. I had her cremated. Cheaper and because burial is for the people that you want to come back someday. If there's a god that's going to bring all the buried back to life at the end of days, I don't want her back.

I tried to tell them it was a likely suicide. They said there were easier ways to do that than twenty-four little cuts. I told them they didn't know her. They're still looking for the guy.

I walked straight to that staircase while Og ooh'd and ah'd and made some sinful sounds at all of the interesting things he was finding throughout the first floor. Og was an artist, visuals were what really got him. I knew he'd have a field day with the house – inside and out. History aside, even I could admit that it was beautiful. And creepy.

They had cleaned up well, scouring every drop of blood from the floor. Still felt like I could smell it.

Og was chattering happily to himself when I started up the stairs. Every step took me a little ways back in time until I reached the upper floor. I looked over this railing a thousand times from the first days I could walk.

I leaned over and the curves that I tried so hard to ignore hit me. My hands gripped the railing as a wave of dizzy hit. I shut my eyes and counted to ten, the same way my father had taught us. It was over when I opened them. This had been my mother's house. My father had learned how to deal with the architecture after they married.

Him, I could miss.

“Logan?” Og's body appeared in the space below me. He turned in a slow circle, taking in the room and then the stairs.

I opened my mouth and then decided against saying anything. Instead, I quietly backed away from the railing so he couldn't see me. There was enough in that lower room to keep him busy for a couple minutes. Eight closed doors circled the railing. This whole level was for the children. Every door had its lock on the outside. I could almost hear phantom fists banging on the wood, begging to be let out.

I played my fingers over the lock on my door. Simple. Easy to turn and make sure no one could get out. No one else did, but I did. I did.

Small room just like all of them and no windows so that with the door locked shut, there was only darkness. I looked first at my bed and then the one directly across from it. Identical in every way. Just like we had been.

I don't know what I expected, coming straight to this room. To see his ghost? To see a child jumping on his bed in the exact way that mother always told us not to? For that ghost to jump on me, wrapping ice cold translucent arms around me in the tightest hug imaginable?

The only ghosts here were the ones inside my head.

I used to imagine coming back here sometimes. I'd go through the house just like I did except faster. Running up the stairs and to the room we shared. Throw open the door and there he is. Looking just like me but more ragged. Lucas would have escaped from wherever he'd been and come back here because it was the only place he knew. And because he knew I'd find him.

No ghosts. No escaped captives.

I ran my hand over my eyes, flinging tears on the dusty floor. Arms came around me from behind and squeezed. “The rooms I looked at only had one bed. Did your family have twins or something?”

I nodded. “Me and my brother.”

“You never told me you have a twin brother.”

“I haven't had one in over ten years.”

Og sighed, kissing my shoulder. “And you don't have any idea how seven kids _and_ your father disappeared?”

“No. I've never been able to track down any of my other family members, either. But I remember them. I remember seeing them when I was little. Sometimes I wonder if I made everything up.”

“The truth will come out. In the meantime...I have a proposal.”

I twisted around to look at him. “If you're thinking – ”

“Slumber party!” Og interrupted me, throwing his hands up.

“No.”

“Yes. Come on, spending the whole night here will definitely prove that we can live here.”

“No.”

“And if the house is haunted, it's better to find out now.”

I shook my head. “I haven't agreed to move in, yet.”

Og ticked off his fingers. “No rent. We're basically in a town, not the middle of nowhere. This place has got my mind going wild with things for my art. Please?”

I sighed. “You planned this out, didn't you? Staying the night here.”

Og hooked his arm in mine, walking me down the hall. “I may have packed the trunk with blankets and food so we can camp out.”

“Blankets? All we have to do is beat the dust off of one of these beds. There are a ton of them.”

“Yeah, but I want to camp out in the living room. We can light a fire in the fireplace – ”

“Dangerous,” I reminded him. We had no idea when the fireplace had last been used or cleaned.

“ – or not. I have a lamp for the same effect. Feast on snacks and pretend we broke into an abandoned house for a little fun.” Og moved his hand to grab my ass and I jumped.

“I can't make any guarantees on that front.” We'd reached the stairs and were heading down. From here, I caught a glimpse of a door I remembered well. It was maybe one of the only doors in the house that didn't have a lock on the outside.

“Fair enough.”

I stopped us at the door. It clicked when I tried to open it. Locked. There wasn't even a keyhole to unlock it. Which meant –

“Oh, my God...is that locked from the _inside_?” Og asked. “What's back there?”

I stared at the door, the sick feeling back stronger than ever in my stomach. “The basement.”

“Who locks a _basement_ from the inside? How do you even do that? And why isn't there a way to open it from out here?”

“If it's locked, it's for a good reason. Not our problem right now.”

“Right. Right now is for camping fun!” Og jumped out of the way when I took a swipe at him. He took off for the front door and I raced after him.

It's just a door. 


	3. Chapter 3

Pallets. He really expected us to sleep on a pile of blankets on a hardwood floor. There were at least _nine_ beds in this house.

 

I didn't even help him. In protest, I stood back with my arms over my chest while he laid out the blankets. Og shifted and organized them into a thin mattress that I was sure I would be able to feel the floor through. When he was satisfied with how everything was laid out, he dropped to kneel on one side of the blankets.

 

Og lit the oil lamp and the sudden light made it very clear how dark the house had gotten. I hadn't even noticed the shadows growing while I watched Og make his abandoned house fantasy come true. Even if this was my house and we had called to make sure the electricity was on.

 

Though I vowed not to think about it – not tonight, anyway – my mind kept going back to the basement door. After helping Og get the supplies inside, I'd gone back through the house checking every shut door. All unlocked. The only one in the whole house that we couldn't get inside was the basement.

 

Why?

 

Something was trying to come back to me. A memory or old fear. About the basement and what might be inside.

 

“Hey!” Og hissed at me. “Get down! You wanna get caught?! My mom will be _pissed_ if I get dropped off by the cops again!”

 

I blinked at him for a second, trying to figure out what in the hell he was talking about. I ducked when it hit me. I moved to sit on the blanket putting the lamp between us. “Sorry! I forgot.”

 

Og giggled. “Well, don't forget again. This is _trespassing_.”

 

I caught the bag of chips he tossed at me. “Yeah. We're so _bad_.”

 

“So, what's next?”

 

I stared at him. “You're asking me? I thought you were the big camping expert. At this point, all I know is that we're sleeping on the floor of a nice house, our fire is an oil lamp – where do you even buy those anymore? – and that you're apparently planning on getting laid.” I looked around the room. The light didn't push the dark back enough and it raised the creepy factor by ten. “Still working on that last one.”

 

Og was looking into the shadows, too, when I brought my eyes back to him. “I guess it's a good time for the ghost story portion of the night.”

 

“Really? Ghost stories in a house that looks like this? Feels a little bit like overkill.” My mind had already started to run with it, though. All it took was the word, 'story,' for the foundation to start being set.

 

“Is there a better place? Think about this: if you can really scare me, then I might not want to come back and try to live here.”

 

That made me smile. I knew we were already going to move in. I could feel it radiating off of Og and the past me had already proven that I would do anything to keep Og happy. I turned my attention to the small flame, watching it dance with my eyes while the rest of my brain worked to put words and pictures into a coherent set.

 

After a few minutes, “Once upon a time – ”

 

“Aw, yeah.” Og said. He was sitting Indian style now with his elbows on his knees and his jaw on his hands.

 

“– there was a house. It sat in a field all alone. There wasn't anyone else living nearby. In fact, the people in the closest town tended to avoid the house and the field even though the land had been proven to be very fertile. Anything planted would grow and grow big. But the construction of that house had done something to the land. People who ate the crops would become sick. There was nothing that any doctor could do. They would just get sicker and sicker until they died.”

 

“Why not tear the house down?” Og asked.

 

I stared at the fire. “The usual. People were scared. They thought that the curse might spread. So for years, people avoided the house. Until the Smith family. Mother, Father, three children. They were heading from one town to the next. Dark roads. Late at night. The kids were asleep in the back. Mom had zoned out staring out her window.

 

“Dad took an extra long blink and the deer chose the wrong second to cross the usually empty road. Mom was disoriented, the kids were crying, and Dad wasn't breathing anymore. In the car at night, no one had noticed how the clouds had been rolling in overhead. It was going to storm soon and there wasn't anything Mom could do except take the kids and start walking.”

 

At the sound of scratching, I looked away from the fire. Og had pulled his sketchbook from his bag and was working intently on something there. I knew he was still listening and continued. “They came to a dirt road leading off the main one and Mom had to make a decision. Did she keep plowing onward in the hope that they could reach some town somewhere before the storm hit or could she go down this smaller road and maybe find someone living out here that would give them shelter and a chance to use a phone?

 

“Mom said a prayer and took the dirt road. As the first rumblings of thunder hit overhead, they saw the field and the house sitting within it. It had started raining by the time they reached the steps. On the porch, Mom handed the baby to the oldest child and pounded on the door. She screamed, 'Help us! There's been an accident! Please!'”

 

I shook my head. “But no one answered. The wood creaked and the door popped open, swinging in. 'Hello? I have children with me.'

 

“No answer. The house was silent except for the wood creaking. Mom didn't know if it was the storm or someone just out of sight. The only thing she did know was that they couldn't go back outside. Not with the way the storm was picking up. Mom left the kids by the door and went room by room. There was no one in the house. It had been abandoned for some reason that she couldn't see, but they needed the shelter. As long as the kids were safe, everything would be fine. Mom pulled blankets from the nearest room and set the kids up on the long couch in the living room. While they went to sleep, she sat up, finally allowing herself to think about the fact that her husband's body lie still in their car on the side of the road.”

 

I shut my eyes. This house, at least, was silent. No creaking. No ghostly footsteps or a storm beating up the outside. I let my mind jump ahead supplying the next parts of the story that I needed. My lips pulled into a small smile as I saw where this was going. To the sound of Og's pencil, I continued.

 

“In spite of her grief, Mom's fatigue was greater and with the children safe and the storm slacking off outside, she fell asleep sitting up. The couch was empty when she woke up.”

 

The pencil sounds stopped and when I looked up, Og was watching me. The light flickered on his face and I knew that mine looked about the same. “Before she could panic, the children started making sounds in the house. Small feet running about. Laughing. Mom relaxed before realizing that the baby was gone, too. Why would the girls have brought him along with them? How? The oldest was barely big enough to hold him, much less run around carrying the baby.

 

“Mom tracked them down by sound and sure enough, the baby wasn't there. She grabbed the oldest and demanded to know where her brother was. The little girl looked confused and said, 'Mommy...I don't have a brother. It's only us.'

 

“Somewhere in the house, a baby began to cry. Mom let go of her daughter and chased the sound through the house. It was impossible to pinpoint. The sound was coming from everywhere. She tore through every room and no baby. She reached a door where there hadn't been one last night, she was sure of that. When she opened it, the crying became nothing more than the sound of wood creaking.

 

“Mom shut the door again, the son she'd been searching for forgotten.”

 

Og blinked at me. “So she just forgot about her kid?”

 

I licked my lips and grabbed for one of the beers Og had thought to bring. “Yep.”

 

“What the hell? What about the rest of the kids? The mom? Who took the baby?”

 

I held up one finger for him to chill it while I was drinking. A burp popped out the second my mouth was free. “Jesus Christ, can you hold on a sec?”

 

“You know damn well that patience is not one of my strengths.” Og moved the lamp over to the floor and stretched out on the blanket. He put the sketchbook in front of me and started lazily fleshing out some of the pictures with his head on his other arm.

 

“Of course, her youngest son wasn't the only thing she'd forgotten. From waking, she never once thought about her poor husband already beginning to decompose in the driver's seat of their car. As far as Mom knew, she and her daughters had spent their entire lives inside this house. There was no outside world. Just the three of them and the house.”

 

“The house was abandoned. They didn't have any food.” Og said.

 

I shrugged. “They didn't notice. All day, they explored the house and played. Happier than they'd ever been. That night, they all three slept in the large master bedroom upstairs together. And when Mom woke up...”

 

“She was down another kid.”

 

“She and her oldest – now her only – found yet another room they hadn't seen before. The walls creaked. Their world had dropped to two. And the next day it was one. Mom spent all day wandering the house. She made it her mission to touch every window and stroke every door. She did it to the sound of the wood creaking, growing, making room for one more.

 

“That night, she went to bed somehow knowing that she was never going to leave this house. As the sun came up, the wood creaked and fell silent. That house sat in that field for years until some brave developers came along and built a freaking subdivision around it, completely ignorant of the evil that lurked within. Once families began to move into the surrounding cookie-cutter houses, they began to disappear and the house...well, the house kept adding more rooms.”

 

The silence settled around us and then somewhere in the house, there was a sound. Og jumped, snapping his head up to look at me. “Seriously?!”

 

I licked my lips. “House sounds _hungry_.”

 

#_#_#

 

I fully expected to dream that night and I have to say, I was not disappointed.

 

It was the smell of blood that woke me. And then there was the voice. I disentangled myself from Og's limbs to get up. The words were impossible to make out. I had the feeling that they were in English, just too far and too soft for me to understand, yet. It didn't help that they were spoken in a droning chant that made it hard to even pick one word from the next.

 

It wasn't the words that mattered. It was the voice speaking them.

 

Goosebumps popped up all over my body as I followed it to the base of the stairs. Mother lay exactly where they'd found her. She was clothed only in silver and blood that looked black in the moonlight. The ceiling here was gone, replaced by a glass dome showing a moon too large to be ours.

 

As I watched, it filled with red. Dark, angry clouds rolled in until that red eye was gone.

 

The corpse on the floor continued to chant. As my feet carried me closer against my will, I finally understood. “...in the dark of the night, in the chaos of the storm, in the mindless want of an infant's cry. Freedom the prize, twenty-four the price.”

 

Once I heard that, she changed to some other ancient language. I knew that language even though I couldn't understand it. Or something in me knew that language. A language to be feared and exalted. Same as the thing those words called to.

 

Mother sat up and every last curving wound wept more dark blood. The chanting died down. She smiled and there was blood between her teeth. “My son.”

 

Glass shattered above us, shining shards dropping to litter the floor. I didn't see what came through the domed ceiling to grab her and take her away. My body and mind protected themselves, leaving the remains of my eyes cooling in my hands.

 


	4. Chapter 4

I stayed still when I woke up, listening to Og snore beside me. He was spread out on his back with one leg thrown over mine. The dream had faded fast, leaving me with just the feeling of fear and no details.

 

Og was completely in love with the house and he hadn't even seen all of it yet. We'd gotten here so late yesterday and then he wanted to set up camp before the sun set completely.

 

Og moaned softly and when I looked, he was definitely involved in a better dream than the impression I got of mine. I reached down to squeeze his thigh and his whole leg twitched.

 

Og gasped in a breath. “Wha – ?”

 

I grinned at him when his eyes finally found me. “Please tell me you weren't just cheating on me with this house.”

 

He looked down at himself. “I thought we agreed that it's not cheating if it's in a dream.”

 

“I'm starting to think you love this place more than you love me.”

 

“Really? It says a lot more about you if that's what you took away from last night.” Og sat up, moving to sit over me. “Because...I thought I was pretty clear with who I prefer.”

 

“Yeah? Wait, 'who?' Is the house a person, now?”

 

“Shut up,” Og laughed, coming down to kiss me.

 

#_#_#

 

As we were getting dressed, Og asked, “Hey, did you find the master bedroom yesterday?”

 

I shook my head. “Don't have to find it. It's the whole third floor.”

 

“Which the main stairs don't go to.”

 

“Nope. Second staircase off the entry. You didn't see that?”

 

“No!” Og jumped up and ran barefoot out of the room. “What the hell? How did I not see this?”

 

I was still laughing when I reached him. “Seriously? You were too busy having eye-sex with the rest of the house to notice an entire staircase.”

 

“It's all...tucked away.” Og ran his hand over the curving banister. He looked up and I did the same.

 

It went in a spiral straight up to the third floor. There was one stop off with a ledge and a door that had to come out in one of the rooms on the second floor. Og started up and I followed. That was fine with me. Better view and I wasn't sure how much I wanted to see my parents' room. We'd never been allowed up there when I was little.

 

When we made it, Og went straight to the bed against the far wall. Aside from the closed off bathroom in one corner, the whole upper floor was open. I went to look over the railing in the center. It was open all the way down to the first floor. I could see the stairs and the curves. It made me dizzier than the view from the second floor and I had to shut my eyes.

 

“Oh, my God.”

 

“Logan?” Footsteps. Og's fingers threading through mine on the rail. “Whoa.”

 

I kept my eyes shut. “None of us were even allowed on the second staircase. They never let us up here.”

 

Og squeezed my hand. “And now it's ours.”

 

I sighed. “You wanna sleep up here, don't you?”

 

Og's lips on mine. “You really need to see your parents' bed.”

 

“Do I?”

 

“Well, it is where all the magic happened.”

 

I didn't have to open my eyes to know he had a big grin on his face. “Shut up.”

 

“You know how much I love a good origin story.”

 

I smacked him, playfully, and a very not playful thought whispered through me. The railing was right there. A hard enough shove and Og could go over. Three stories. There was no way he'd survive hitting the bottom. He might even die in the same place that Mother did.

 

I glanced over the railing and could almost see her body lying at the foot of the stairs. I jumped back from the rail and Og grabbed me before I could go too far.

 

“What is it?”

 

“I, um...” Well Ogden, Love, I appear to be seeing things. We should get the holy hell out of here skip-a-dee-dee!

 

I shook my head. “You wanted to show me a bed?”

 

Og kept staring at me and then he slowly nodded. “I think our mattresses will fit, so all we have to do is lug them up here and change them out. That way, we don't have to bring the frame up. Plus...” he pulled me to the bed on the other side of the room, “check this out. It's...amazing.”

 

Amazing was one word for it. Another would have been chilling. It was a four-poster bed and like everything else in the house, each post was curving and twisted. The headboard was made of some kind of thick, black wood. Hand-carved images called my eye in every direction at once.

 

Some of them made sense while others just seemed to be more curving lines. Between the curves were rows of people. I counted three rows of eight people carved so that they were kneeling naked with their hands extended upward. I followed it upward to whatever they were praising, but pain split my head when my mind tried to piece together...something.

 

I shut my eyes and the pain was gone. Keeping them away from the top of the headboard, I could open my eyes without the pain coming back. Og was close to it, running his hand over one of the people. “This is so amazing...do you think someone in your family made this?”

 

“I don't know.”

 

“I think we take this room for ourselves first off and then we can work on cleaning up the rest of the house. With the bed, all we really need to do is get our mattresses up here. What do you think?”

 

I nodded my head to the bed. “You really wanna sleep on that?”

 

“Yeah! It's...” Og looked back at the headboard and I was somewhat satisfied that he wasn't raising his eyes to the top of the image, either. “Baby, it's art. And history. Your history.”

 

Og ran his hand down the smooth wood and I felt like his hand was on my skin. I shut my eyes and then felt Og's lips on mine. “My history, too, now.”

 

I nodded. Without opening my eyes, I could tell that he was still touching the wood. “Was there anything else you wanted to see?”

 

“Final answer on moving in?” Og asked.

 

I opened my eyes and looked at the headboard again before turning them back to him. Every second that we spent in this house, it was feeling less and less like a choice. Not just because I knew refusing would break Og's heart and kill our chances of being able to afford much more than food with the rent we were paying right now.

 

Beneath my anxiety and reluctance, though, there was a small wire running hot with excitement. Living here, I could turn the stories around. This could become a place of life and love instead of fear and disappearances.

 

This house could become a home if I wanted it to be.

 

 


	5. Chapter 5

It became a running joke that he was more in love with the house than he was with me. Hey, I got to enjoy him proving himself to me, so there wasn't any chance of me stopping any time soon.

 

Aside from the beds and a long dining table, the house didn't really have that much furniture. All of our things easily fit into the empty spaces. Except in our room. Getting the mattresses up was a fight that we weren't going to repeat with anything else. Instead, we found that the door from the second staircase lead into one of the smaller rooms that actually wasn't used as a bedroom. We hauled the dresser in there as a sort of changing room we could slip into before heading downstairs.

 

Og had put some of his art on the walls. He'd really taken up most of the decorating of the house. I basically just set up a place to write in an empty area right off the room with the large staircase. I had a deadline closer than anything Og needed to put out and working toward it was what I was doing when he ducked his head inside the small room.

 

“I think I'm ready to break into the basement and see what horrors your family was hiding.” Og said.

 

I sighed. I needed a break, anyway. “Be careful what you joke about with the guy who's the only member of this family to still be alive.”

 

“Right. Sorry. But I'm sure your parents let the cops check the basement when they were looking for the kids.”

 

“And then they managed to lock it from the inside again.” I mumbled.

 

Og slid his arm around my waist when I reached him. “Maybe there's a homeless guy living in our basement. At night, he'll come out and grab some food.”

 

I flashed on my fantasy of finding my brother somewhere in the house, ragged but alive. That hope fizzled out instantly, smothered by my knowledge that reality didn't work that way. Lucas wasn't anywhere because he was long dead.

 

I smiled. “As long as he doesn't touch anything of mine, I'm not sure I care.”

 

There were a lot of tools lying around the basement door. I vaguely remembered hearing him banging around, but I had bigger things to worry about than him destroying parts of the house.

 

“Okay.” Og said. “So I had to sit on the hood of your car to get the internet on my phone, but I think I've got it. I've taken apart the hinges.”

 

“All of that noise and begging and pleading just to take off the hinges?”

 

“I did have to ask the gods of open doors for a little help. And then I figured out the hinge thing.”

 

“The hinge thing sounds like it would be a little more obvious.”

 

He shrugged. “I'm sorry that my thing doesn't include spending my days trying to figure out the best ways to break in to locked doors. You know, if it was that obvious to you, you could have said something.”

 

“I figured banging around would keep you busy and out of my hair.”

 

“ _Obviously_ not. Now, I need you.”

 

We managed to get the door out of the frame without too much pain. Except to my fingers. Which I need. But Og cracked himself on the head with the door when it was free, so he got his, too. The light didn't reach too far into the doorway, leaving us staring into darkness.

 

“Any idea what we're going to find down there?” Og said, his voice an almost reverent whisper.

 

“Nope.” I could feel my anxiety clawing its way up from my stomach. It was about to wrap its hands around my neck.

 

“I'll go down.” Og said suddenly. I hadn't even noticed him turning to look at me. “You can wait up here and if a monster doesn't grab me, I'll call you.”

 

Og turned the flashlight on his phone and it showed us the steps leading down. It wasn't strong enough to go all the way. He winked at me and started down. As much as I didn't want to, I still followed him.

 

Og kept pausing and sweeping the wall on our right with the light. Still no light switch. He never turned it to the left, though, so the rest of the basement remained a sea of darkness where any manner of monsters could be waiting.

 

Or ghosts.

 

Easier than unnamed monsters, I could imagine all of the disappeared standing in the room. Waiting as if we were the guests of honor at some demented surprise party. It was an insane thought, but with every creaking step, I expected the lights to come on and for the singing to begin.

 

The lights did come on, but the only sound was the loud click of the switch that Og hit. I was mid-step when it happened and slipped. I landed on Og and we both stumbled into the far wall. I kept my eyes shut tight. “Little warning next time?”

 

“Sorry.”

 

“I really don't wanna be blind right now. Here.”

 

“I know. I said I'm sorry.” I felt his face pushing into my shoulder. “Make it up to you later. Promise.”

 

I turned my head to kiss his hair. “You better.”

 

Og shifted and then, “You know, I really expected there to be at least one actual monster in this house.”

 

I cracked my eyes open and when I was staring at the wall and not just a white light, I let go of Og to turn around. It just looked like a large room. Nothing. No boxes of children's toys or family heirlooms like they show in movies. Just empty space. Still...

 

I shook my head. “Something's not right.”

 

“Hm?” Og slid away from me to go exploring.

 

I couldn't speak. Something was squeezing my body, making it smaller. I scrambled back up the stairs with one thought in my head.

 

The hope had been real.

 

If not the real, living Lucas locked away down here, then at least his body. Several bodies. There weren't any answers in this house. Never was, never would be.

 

I stumbled through the house more on instinct than sight. Out the front door. The feeling of something squeezing around me eased up some.

 

Og came clomping out behind me. “Logan?”

 

Gasping. “I...I really thought there'd be something. She did it. I know she did. She made them disappear. Rupert, Edward, Teresa, Cindy, Leo, Mary, Lucas. My dad.”

 

We were sitting on the steps when it started to rain. I was done crying. My insides felt like they'd been carved out. No answers. Never.

 

 


	6. Chapter 6

Og was spending more time in the basement. He'd taken the lack of door as an opportunity to put up the beaded curtain I'd refused to let him hang in our apartment. Since there wasn't any chance of me going down there again, it didn't matter how I thought it beads felt like tentacles running over my skin as I passed through.

 

I saw him mostly at night when he would climb back upstairs, smudges of black all over his arms and face. Charcoal or lead or something. He was working on something big. An idea that was coming together after his mind cataloged all of the all of the house. Something about its essence, but he wouldn't go into detail.

 

That was fine, I never talked about my stories, either. I'd gotten the last on a website and the reviews were good other than the constant mention that this one was a little darker than some of my others. I started and finished it in this house, of course it was going to be dark. And I was sure that when Og finally let me see what he was working on, it would be dark, too.

 

The house was already beginning to change us. Only parts of us, though.

 

“Ah...I like when you do that.”

 

“Do you?” I smiled, moving in almost the exact way I just did. “Really? I had no idea.”

 

Og laughed and I kissed him. He whispered, “I'm so close...”

 

“Yeah?”

 

“Yeah, roll over.” Og pushed me and I was on my back. He smiled down at me before he shut his eyes. Og rocked his hips faster as he rode me. Head tipped back and I knew he was going to do it.

 

“Don't...” I tried, but it was too late.

 

Og opened his eyes. His whole body seized with his eyes locked on the part of the headboard that I couldn't even try looking at without getting a headache.

 

“Og?”

 

He kept staring up at it.

 

“ _Ogden_.”

 

Og gasped, his eyes rolling back. He fell forward to lie limp on me. I grabbed him. “Og? Are you okay?”

 

Og moved on me, turning his head to kiss my neck. “Please, Logan...fuck me...”

 

I pushed him up until I could see him. Og blinked down at me and his eyes looked clouded as if he'd been drugged. He kept rocking his hips. “Touch me...finish me...”

 

I started moving with him. “What did you just see?”

 

Og raised his head to look up again. “Sky...a sky full...full of...oh, God...clouds...and...”

 

He dropped to kiss me and I felt his cum on my stomach. That finished me, too. Og rolled to lie beside me. He was out before I could ask again what he saw.

 

#_#_#

 

There's someone in the house.

 

I don't know where the thought came from, but it was there when I woke up. The house was still dark and the clock told me I'd only been asleep for a couple hours. At first, I didn't move. Probably just some remnant left over from a dream.

 

A stair creaked.

 

I shot up. The room was dark, very little light coming in any of the windows. I swear, it'd been either cloudy or raining for days. “Og?”

 

Og muttered something, rolling onto his back. I shoved him. “Og, there's someone in the house.”

 

“No one's going to break into the haunted witch-house.” Og yawned. He tried to get me to lie down again, but that wasn't happening. He groaned next. “Come on. You wore me out. I'm _tired_.”

 

“I heard someone.”

 

“Screw it. We don't have anything of value anyway.” Og mumbled.

 

I got up, pulling on a pair of pants. I was almost to the bat sticking out of a box when he said, “You're taking your bat?”

 

“Unless you want me to get murdered.”

 

“Yeah, because the guy who stops the car for squirrels to cross is going to hit someone with a bat.”

 

I turned and he had my pillow hugged to his head. “Please, stay right here.”

 

I eased down the stairs. The house had gone back to being quiet. I was passing the door to the second floor when I heard another creak. Taking a deep breath, I pushed the door open.

 

The only thing in the room was a dresser and a couple old posters Og put up. Wouldn't have occurred to me. I'm not half as visual as he could be.

 

I opened the door to the circle of rooms. No one.

 

There was another creak and then quick footsteps on the wood. They sounded like they were coming from all around me. Soft laughter. Another game. But who was playing?

 

_Logan..._

 

Every muscle in my body went tense. I knew that voice. “...Lucas?”

 

Footsteps right behind me. I turned with the bat up. Og held his hands in front of his face. “Do what you want. Just...don't bruise my face. I wanna die pretty.”

 

I relaxed. “Could you make a little more noise?”

 

“Probably.” Og shrugged. “Find anything?”

 

“Other than your elephant feet and creepy laughter, no.”

 

Og shook his head. “I wasn't laughing. Stepped a little too hard, but why would I laugh?”

 

I put a finger over my lips. “Shut up for a minute. Can you do that?”

 

Og made a locking motion over his mouth. I pointed at the stairs behind him for him to go down those while I took the main stairs. As soon as I was alone, I heard the steps again. Rapid. Someone running over the wood floor.

 

Og met me downstairs. We searched the first floor ourselves and Og even went down to the basement. There wasn't anyone in the house. Everything was where we left it.

 

“You must have had a bad dream or something.” He said when we gave up.

 

“You never heard anything? People running around. Laughing.”

 

Og touched my face. “Look...I wanna call my brother down.”

 

“No...”

 

“Jen's been asking to come down and visit, anyway. Might be good having a couple more people here.”

 

“And your brother can shrink my head for free.”

 

“Okay. Not yet. Back to bed?”

 

I nodded, glancing at the door to the basement. The next night, he would be gone.

 

 


	7. Chapter 7

Og stayed in the basement almost all day. Inspiration had hit hard again this morning and he'd run off before I could even ask him about what he had seen in the headboard last night.

 

I grabbed my computer and went out to sit on the hood of my car. So far, no one had been able to tell us why the internet wouldn't connect anywhere in the house. Over half the time, not even our cells would work inside the house.

 

I stared at the house for a minute before beginning my search with the bare bones of the thing. I typed, 'Footsteps and laughter in empty house.' Which gave me somewhere in the realm of a billion pages. From the looks of the first couple, they were all going to be about the same as what I'd thought.

 

_'100 signs that you have a ghost!'_

 

_'Hearing footsteps when you're alone? You could have a spirit trapped in your home.'_

 

Then, no less than six sites that all used the words, 'Paranormal activity' in them. There was even one asking for submissions for a show they were trying to do.

 

If ghosts were real and they were in this house, they were of people I had loved. For the most part. The thought of bringing a group in looking to exploit them just to make a name for themselves made me sick.

 

If they were just ghosts...I'm their brother. They could show me or...or say something. Let me know exactly who's here. Let me know they're okay. Let me know they're not actually asking for me to help them get back from where they've been taken.

 

Goddammit. Without the remains, hope just keeps hanging around.

 

I light up the search bar. It takes several tries, but finally something with the terms, 'Story Woman kids abandoned house.' Whoever translated it used different words, but the story was almost the same as what I told Og when we camped out.

 

As I read his version, maybe the original version, I heard my mother's voice. It was her story. She told it to us. The woman, the children, the disappearances making the house grow larger.

 

I looked up at the house, half-expecting new rooms to be springing up right in front of my eyes. When everything was the same, my eyes went to the windows. No ghostly figures staring back.

 

The website said that it was translated from the only discovered text from what was thought to be a Nordic cult. There were stories and prayers to some unnamed Deity that they thought may have been associated with a family that made their home by the ocean.

 

Do you know how it feels when you know the exact word you're looking for, but it just won't come? Sitting on the hood of my car, I got the feeling that every answer I wanted was already inside me, but it was so fuzzy that they were just out of reach.

 

#_#_#

 

Creak.

 

Giggle.

 

Games.

 

I am not me. This house is not mine. The kids that I'm searching for are not mine. These are all things I know, yet the empty current of panic still courses through me. I needed to find them so that we can get out of here.

 

The creaking came from every direction. It kept me spinning until I had to stop. There was no way I could go every direction at once and no way the kids could possibly be making that much noise.

 

I realized that the creaking wasn't inside the house the same as she must have figured it out. Whoever she was. Whoever's dream I was currently in.

 

I ran for the front door, her skirts tripping me up so that I couldn't move as fast as I wanted to. The door fought me, but I got it open. There weren't any kids outside. Just Og. The sky made a sound like wood tearing over us.

 

#_#_#

 

I woke with the sound of the sky splintering in my ears. Familiar darkness. Familiar bed under me. Something bad was going to happen to Og in the dream and I was glad I didn't have to see it. Chills ran over my skin. Rain tapped the windows. Of course it was storming. Granted, I didn't remember much about my childhood, but I don't remember it raining as much as it did since we moved in.

 

I rolled over, seeking Og and his side of the bed was empty. No. Not empty.

 

The necklace he'd found in the basement lay beside his pillow as if it had just slipped off and he'd forgotten it. The pendant was a small jar hanging on a leather cord. Since finding it, I don't think Og had taken it off.

 

Inside the clear cylinder was a small tentacle floating in some kind of liquid. All we knew was that it was old. I had the barest sliver of a memory of my mother wearing it, but I tried not to dwell too much on that with Og wearing it.

 

I pushed away the image of him standing outside the house. Sometimes Og got a thought that would send him to his art in the middle of the night. That had to be it. He was in the basement right now, working hard on something.

 

I left the necklace on the bed where I found it. If he wanted it, he could damn well come back to bed. I would make sure he couldn't leave again. I slipped down the stairs, stopping to peek my head in the door to the second floor when I heard the creak of someone's foot.

 

“Og?”

 

The only answer was another creak and the patter of the rain coming down harder. Funny, it almost sounded like laughter.

 

Down to the first floor and then the bead curtain. The basement beyond was dark, but I called anyway. “Og? Baby, I don't think drawing in the dark is that healthy. It would really suck to become a blind artist.”

 

That I'm alone in this house is a fact that suddenly consumes me. The knowledge crushes me. I ran through every room on the first floor, calling for Og in each one.

 

Empty.

 

The thunder sounded like wood being cracked open. I tore open the front door and there he was. The rain was coming in torrents and he was soaked through. Standing, staring straight up.

 

I ran out and grabbed him. There were bloody half-moon cuts all over him seeping blood. Too shallow for any one to cause too much trouble. With so many...he was bleeding out and the rain washed it away.

 

When he finally looked at me, there was a rapturous look on his face. He kissed me, but wouldn't move when I tried to pull him toward the house. Og only shook his head. “In the name of the one whose name cannot be held by human tongue. The one who is with us always in the dark of the night, in the chaos of the storm, in the mindless want of an infant's cry. Freedom the prize, twenty-four the price.”

 

I pulled on him again. “Og! We gotta get inside! Now!”

 

Og smiled at me. “You'll have me again, Logan. When it's over.”

 

“When _what's_ over?” Another loud crack of thunder.

 

“Everything.”

 

Something came down from the sky. It wrapped around Og and ripped him away from me. There was nothing I could do. He never even screamed. Just kept his eyes on me as it sped him away straight into the turbulent sky. When he disappeared into it, I saw...something.

 

Thick tentacles rolled in a mass against our sky from wherever it was. So black that it was darker than the darkest clouds around it. So large that it took up as much of the sky as I could see.

 

I ended up back inside the house with not one memory of moving on my own. I was crawling over the floor and quickly collapsed when I reached the stairs where my mother died.

 


	8. Chapter 8

Sunlight bouncing off the glass. Lightning that never ends.

 

Lightning. Storm. Clouds like water. Oceans. A sea without boundaries. Without end. In it...

 

No.

 

Light. Reflecting back. Moving?

 

“Hah...?” A voice. My voice? Can't be. Can't speak. No mouth. No body. Just light on glass. Fractured. Reflecting images on a tank. Have to be whole first to be broken.

 

Something beyond the lightning. A shape. Watery. Distorted. Not the same as the thing that took Og.

 

Og? Is that a name? What kind of a name is that?

 

His name. Og. Ogden Gerald Finch. Born in Kaciti, Kasas. Kasas? What kind of nonsense word is that?

 

Gibberish. Nonsense. Unintelligible drip-drip-dribble.

 

Something was happening to my face. My face? When did I get one of those? It was a pulling around my mouth.

 

Lightning. Smile for the camera!

 

“Logan?”

 

My face went slack again. I know that voice. My voice. Not my voice.

 

Panicked. “Logan? Where are you?!”

 

Where am _I_? Where are _you_?

 

I rolled onto my back. Swirl of stairs. An open circle above that. The eye of the storm. Sleeping in the eye of the storm. Sleeping. Sleeping and woke to see the storm. Devoured all but little ol' me.

 

“Logan! I'm really scared! I need you!”

 

Moving from this spot was at the bottom of the short list of things I wanted to do, but I did it. Sitting up and then using the stairs to pull myself to my feet.

 

He called again. “You know I hate being alone, Logan!”

 

“No' 'lone...'m 'ere...” Didn't come out right. Croaking like a frog. Mouth dry. Throat dry. With the acknowledgment that I had a body – that I was one of _those_ people instead of just a mind – a dozen little things made themselves known to me.

 

My muscles were so stiff that it was hard to move. My stomach was as empty as my mouth was dry. My head hurt. Piss and shit were the dominant smells coming off me. I stumbled into the kitchen and gulped down a whole glass of water. I had just opened the fridge when I heard him again.

 

“Logan!”

 

I stopped at the eye of the storm and looked up. On the far circle, someone moved. This wasn't the staircase I needed to get to him. I climbed the smaller spiral and he was there waiting for me. As ragged as I'd always imagined. I opened my mouth and he beat me to it.

 

“You look like shit.” The truth said with a smile to soften the blow.

 

“Yeah? You look like a freaking supermodel.”

 

He grabbed me and the arms were neither translucent or cold. I squeezed him back. “I knew you'd come back.”

 

“Knew you'd find me.” Lucas said. “Now go get a shower. You don't just _look_ like shit, you know.”

 

“Hah. Hah. Find me something to eat. I'm starving.”

 

I stepped into the shower and lost the strength to do anything. Lucas being here made about as much sense as Og being gone. Made about as much sense as everything else in the universe. My eyes had slipped shut and I felt Lucas' hands helping clean me up. He supported me out of the shower and into the bedroom. Dressed me and helped me eat before tucking me into bed.

 

I was already half-asleep. “Don't go anywhere while I'm out.”

 

“Right here when you wake up.”

 

#_#_#

 

I definitely felt better waking up here than I had lying under the stairs. More clear. More of my thoughts connecting the way they should. I kept my eyes shut, counting up all the things I knew to be true.

 

  1. Og was gone. That...that thing...in the sky took him.




 

Can't exist. Shouldn't exist. Not there not there not there...

 

Get a grip. Gotta get a grip.

 

  1. Logan. My name is Logan. I'm twenty-eight years old. I inherited this house after my mother – sacrificed – killed herself.




 

  1. My brother went missing on our eighth birthday.




 

I opened my eyes and Lucas was lying in the bed next to me. He had my laptop on his stomach and he was reading something that I had a feeling I wrote. As if he could feel me looking, he rolled his head to the side. He smiled. “Good morning.”

 

“Are you real?”

 

Lucas raised a hand in the universal symbol for 'take my hand.' “Dunno. I'm willing to find out if you are.”

 

I stared at his hand. It looked so real. The mirror of my own. Him being real was impossible to explain, but if he wasn't then I went back to being alone. I shook my head. “Not yet. I can't.”

 

Lucas shrugged, dropping it to the mattress again. “You slept like you were dead.”

 

“Yeah.” I yawned, looking at the windows. It was light outside. No idea how many days it's been since Og disappeared. “Is it really morning?”

 

“I'm not so good at telling time anymore.” Lucas said.

 

“Me neither.” I tried to push myself up and there was something in my hand. A glass jar. The necklace Og had been wearing before he left. I didn't know how I knew, but he had chosen to go. It hadn't taken him.

 

Lucas caught me staring at it. “You should wear it. He'd want you to.”

 

“You didn't ever get to meet him. How would you know?”

 

“You should wear it.” He repeated.

 

“Why are you here?” I asked as I slipped the cord over my head. The jar with its little tentacle hung in the center of my chest.

 

“To take care of you. Come on, we should go downstairs.” Lucas got up and I followed.

 

On the way down the stairs, my vision kept shattering and sliding back into place. The lights were too bright and the shadows were too dark. He had to grab me twice to keep me from tumbling down the stairs.

 

“What does it mean that you can touch me?”

 

Lucas snorted. “Well, duh, I can touch you. _You're real_. Doesn't mean that I am unless you touch me.”

 

He deposited me in a chair in the dining room to go make some coffee by the smell of it. Then I smelled food cooking. Trying to square how he could not be real and still be cooking gave me a headache.

 

Lucas put a plate in front of me and I didn't even look at him. It hit me that it had been twenty years since he'd disappeared. He still looked a lot like me. A little more ragged. Pale. Gaunt with dark circles around his eyes. A scraggly beard.

 

“What's your part in this?”

 

“What?”

 

“Mother had something to do with the thing I saw take Og. She also had something to do with disappearing you in this house. Therefore, _you_ have something to do with all this. I don't know if I'm seeing you because of what I saw outside or what, but you're here for a reason.”

 

He smiled. “I already told you. I'm here to take care of you.”

 

“Just tell me what they want. What that thing wants.”

 

Lucas shook his head. “I don't understand...”

 

“Cut the shit, Logan.” I said and backed up. “Lucas. Cut the shit, _Lucas_. I remember...”

 

It hurt to remember. Real, physical pain. “I remember Og before he was gone. He said I would get him back when it's over. When _what's_ over?”

 

“I can't tell you that.”

 

“Og comes back when it happens?”

 

Lucas dragged a chair next to me and sank into it facing me. “Yes.”

 

“Then tell me what I have to do.”

 

“I can't. You're not gonna like it. Just let me take care of you for a few days.”

 

“No. I don't need to be taken care of. I need Og back so that we can the hell away from here and that...that _thing_.”

 

“It doesn't work like that.” Lucas grabbed my hand and I remembered everything in full detail.

 

Og taken into the sky. The thick, writhing tentacles. Spreading out as far as I could see. I knew now that it wasn't something new, but older than the first cells in the first lake. Something that had always been there right over our heads. Watching our every move. Whispering into our darkest dreams.

 


	9. Chapter 9

I woke up lying slouched on the table in the dining room. My throat hurt and it reminded me of screaming in the stands at high school football games. They were the only time I could let myself just scream out every emotion in my body. My foster parents wouldn't have appreciated me doing it at home.

 

I got myself a drink in the kitchen and noticed the coffeepot still on. I shut it off and took a quick whiff of the pot. Old. Stronger as it aged. My head hurt and I drank some more water.

 

The TV was on. I walked through the house to the living room where we'd put it. I recognized the back of his head when I saw it. “Hey, when did you get here?”

 

Lucas looked up at me, grin firm in place. “Little bit ago. You gotta stop drinking. You look like shit.”

 

“ _You_ look like shit.” I plopped on the couch next to him.

 

#_#_#

 

Lucas moved his lips when he read. I watched him do it while the TV played something in the background. He turned to me when he finished. “You're seriously not planning on submitting this anywhere?”

 

I shook my head. Talking about my writing always made me uncomfortable and I had to look away from him. “No. It's too...too personal...for that.”

 

“Yeah, but if you think about it, every story is personal to the person that wrote it.” Lucas pulled up another story. “This one is obviously about when you ran away from home. And this,” he pulled up another, “was a nightmare that you kept having for a week straight. You even fit Mother into some of these. As monsters, but still. You wrote a lot about me, too.”

 

I shrugged. “This one's just for me.”

 

“Suit yourself.”

 

#_#_#

 

Hide and Seek is a pretty serious game when you're the only two people in a house this large. The only place off limits was the basement because there was no way in hell I was going down there.

 

#_#_#

 

The next day, we tackled Og's alcohol store in the fridge. Drunk, it was even easier to pretend that everything was okay. Even talked myself into believing Og was in the basement, working on whatever project he'd left behind.

 

#_#_#

 

Day after that, I was lying on the couch when someone knocked on the door. Distantly, I could hear the rain hitting the house. Raining again.

 

I kept my arm where it was over my head. “Lucas, think you can get that?”

 

When there wasn't any answer, I looked. Lucas was gone. Whoever it was knocked again. I dragged myself off the couch and headed for the front door. When I touched the knob, I couldn't bring myself to open it. On the other side, beyond the visitor, was the sky and beyond that...

 

It was still there. Watching. Wanting.

 

The door rattled this time, making me jump. “Og? Logan? There's a car out here, someone's gotta be home!”

 

Og's brother Richard. Something told me I should've seen that coming if he couldn't get a hold of Og for...days. I still wasn't sure how many days had gone by since Og left.

 

Richard banged again. “I'll break down the door if someone doesn't answer soon.”

 

No door meant that it would be able to get in. I twisted the handle – unlocked, how reckless of me – and pulled the door in. I stayed back so that they couldn't see me. “Hi, Richard.”

 

“Logan? Is that you? Why do you sound weird? Where's my brother? I haven't been able to reach either of y'all for _days_.”

 

“We don't really seem to get many bars inside the house. Internet, either. Wish I'd known that you were coming.”

 

Richard stepped in past the door. “Where...?”

 

His wife, Anna, was the one that saw me behind the door. “Oh, my God. Logan? Is that really you?”

 

I scratched at the scruff on my face. I knew how I looked. Bloodshot eyes. Greasy hair. “Had a, uh, bad couple of days. Er...week? I don't even know anymore.”

 

Richard stepped further into the house. “Where's Og?”

 

“I don't know.”

 

Richard glanced at me before heading toward the main staircase. “Og! Ogden!”

 

“You don't think I've tried that?” I murmured.

 

Anna put her arm around me. “What happened?”

 

“He, uh, he left.”

 

“What do you mean he left?” She asked to the background of Richard searching the house.

 

“I mean he's gone. I mean he walked out that door and I haven't seen him since.” All true. Not the whole truth, but most of it.

 

“Where is he?” Richard came back.

 

Anna told him what I said, but all I could hear was Lucas' voice. _It's almost time._

 

“Time for what?”

 

They stopped talking and looked at me. Richard said, “Have you even talked to him since he 'left?'”

 

“Why'd you say 'left' like that? Like you don't believe me.”

 

Richard adjusted his glasses. “I know your history, remember? This house. The disappearances in your family. Why would he leave?”

 

“I don't know. Maybe...maybe he didn't.”

 

“Just how drunk are you right now?” Richard reached to look at my eyes and I knocked his hand away.

 

“I'm not drunk. Now. Yesterday, but not now. I know that didn't make sense, but he did leave a few days ago.” I heard Lucas' voice in my ears and repeated every word. “I heard something in the basement yesterday. It's where he's been working. Maybe he sneaked back in when I wasn't paying attention.”

 

“And he's just not answering me?” Richard said, disbelieving.

 

“If he's asleep, he can sleep like he's dead. You know that. We should go see, at least. If he's not there, we can go to the cops if you want. Honestly, I haven't been in my right mind since he left.” I led them to the main staircase and to the door with the beads.

 

Anna asked, “I don't get why he would just leave. Did you guys have a fight? He was so happy the last time we talked.”

 

“It was more of a...misunderstanding.” I said.

 

 _It's time._ Lucas said again.

 

Richard pointed at me before easing down the stairs into the darkness. “I'm a professional adult, but if you cheated on my brother, I swear to God that I will kick your ass.”

 

I followed at the end of the line into the basement. “Trust me, if I'd cheated on Og, I probably wouldn't be walking right now. There's a light on the wall to the right at the bottom.”

 

That nervousness from the first time I went into the basement started up again in my stomach as we descended. Richard flicked the light on the second he found it and I barely got my eyes shut in time. When I opened them, both Richard and Anna were standing on the floor, turned and staring at something taking up the bulk of the room.

 

I stepped down and nothing that I imagined matched up to what I saw.

 

A hundred huge sheets of paper, each with a part of the whole sketched on it, were connected to form a picture that filled the whole of the basement. He'd rendered it so real that for a second, I thought it had come to our basement. But it was just paper.

 

“What is this?” Richard asked.

 

“Art.” I smiled. Unlike the thing in the sky, this picture didn't give me the same fear...the same cracking of my sanity. The way Og had rendered it was...beautiful.

 

This was what he'd spent so much time on. Og had known everything even before he'd looked at the headboard. Maybe it had talked to him. Showed itself. The jar thrummed against my chest. When I touched it, I could feel the tentacle inside as if I were touching it instead of the glass.

 

“Hey, Logan...where does this go?” Anna had left where we were standing and staring and had gone to the corner. She was staring up and I couldn't see what until I was right under it with her.

 

A door in the ceiling. The jar thrummed harder. “I don't know.”

 

But I think I did. Things were coming back. Images. Lessons. Voices.

 

I grabbed the cord hanging down and pulled the door open. The ladder unfolded like an attic door. I glanced at Richard before climbing up. A window high up let a stream of light break the dark. There was an eight-pointed star etched into it. One wall was lined with an old bookshelf full of books. There was another eight-pointed star in the middle of the room stained dark with old blood.

 

Days spent in this room, all of us listening and learning. My hand holding the knife that cut the half-moons into my brothers' and sisters' skin. The words Mother had made me repeat a thousand times. Memorizing the names of every sacrifice back to my great-grandfather.

 

Someone had screwed up. Lucas should have been number twenty-four, opening the door. She tried to get me to sacrifice Father, too, and that's when I ran.

 

Lucas was only the nineteenth sacrifice. Father, and then Mother. Og made twenty-two.

 

“What were you doing in this place?” Richard asked.

 

I opened my eyes to find that I was standing in the center of the star, swaying in place. There was a knife in my hand, the handle rough with the carvings meant to make it look like a tentacle. I squeezed it and felt the small suckers cutting into my hand.

 

Mother hadn't used this blade on anyone since she'd sacrificed Father.

 

I turned to look at him. Richard's head was poking through the hole and he was trying to describe what he was seeing to Anna. I smiled. “I was telling the truth the first time. Og did leave. But you can help me get him back.”

 

Richard opened his mouth and I kicked him. His head snapped back and he fell off the ladder, hitting the floor with a hard thump. He didn't move.

 

Anna screamed and I rushed down the stairs. Seeing the knife in my hand, she backed away from her husband. Hands up. “Logan. Whatever's going on with you, we can get you help.”

 

“I always liked you more than Richard. But this has been a long time coming.”

 

Anna ran up the stairs. She was almost to the main floor when she froze. I had to take a couple steps to see what stopped her. Og and Lucas stood side by side blocking the door. She looked at them and then back to me.

 

“What is this?”

 

“I'm sorry, Anna, but we can't let you leave.” Og said.

 

Lucas spoke next. “Besides, it's so much better on the other side. Right, Og?”

 

Og's eyes were looking past her to me while his brother groaned on the floor behind me. “You do have a choice, Logan. You can run again. Hide away somewhere. Try to forget. The eye will always be on you. The limbs will always be ready for an opening to snatch you away.”

 

In my mind, the days stretched out in front of me. Always knowing. Always feeling that eye on me. I couldn't even leave this house because I was scared of catching even a glimpse of it and always knowing it's there...I couldn't imagine a hell worse than that.

 

I climbed up the stairs after her. Anna was trapped. She didn't think she could go through the men blocking her way even though I knew she probably could. Anna shook her head. “Please, Logan...just let us go. We won't say anything.”

 

Her eyes flicked to my side and then arms came around my waist. Richard dragged me back and we both fell down the stairs. Og and Lucas vanished and she was through the door. In my ear, “I'm not letting you hurt my wife.”

 

Then he was over me and his hands were on my throat. My kick had bloodied his mouth and he grinned red-stained teeth at me. I started off pulling at his fingers, trying to get free. Richard was both bigger and stronger than me. My head was already starting to go light.

 

The necklace thrummed around my throat. Thunder cracked. I grabbed Richard's head, shoving my thumbs straight into his eyes. He didn't need to see for this to work. Actually, blind he would be able to see more.

 

Richard screamed and let go of my throat. I slammed his head down on the floor until he went limp. Silence except for thunder and my own breathing. Goddammit. Anna was gone. Had to be.

 

“Richard?” Her voice, so soft it was barely there.

 

“I have him.” I said. “He's still alive. If you want him to stay that way, you'll come down here.”

 

Anna stepped into the doorway. She had armed herself with a kitchen knife. “Logan...this isn't you. I don't know what's going on, but – ”

 

“Just stop.” I pulled myself to sit with my back to the wall. Richard had gone limp, but he was still breathing. “Come downstairs, Anna.”

 

After a moment's hesitation, she started down slowly. I started to get up and she pointed the knife at me. “Stay there. Ass on the floor.”

 

I nodded, holding my hands up. I wasn't armed and she was. Anna went to Richard, feeling his throat for a pulse. “He's go– ”

 

I hit her back, knocking the knife away. I climbed over her and she elbowed me hard in the ribs. We struggled and I got her pinned on her back. “Why?”

 

I cracked my head against hers. “In the name of the one whose name cannot be held by human tongue. The one who is with us always in the dark of the night, in the chaos of the storm, in the mindless want of an infant's cry. Freedom the – ”

 

Sharp pain killed my words. I tilted my head and then looked down at the tentacle-shaped knife sticking from my ribs as if it had just suddenly grown there. Anna's hand fell away from it.

 

Thunder hit overhead strong enough to make the whole house tremble. I'd never heard a sound as loud as that and it was the last I ever heard.

 

#_#_#

 

Anna pushed Logan off of her. The house trembled again and she clapped her hands over her ears to try blocking out the boom. Up the stairs. Through the house. Out the front door.

 

It filled the sky. A split from one horizon to the other. And on the other side...

 

Anna screamed.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!


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